Hey Hivemind, do you miss Katawa Shoujo? And I have a question, since you wrote Emi's route (so Def Emi), is Emi X Misha an alternative but canon ship?
It would be a lie if I said I "missed" KS - I don't, really, although I do sometimes look back on that (quite unexpectedly) enormous positive reaction to its release with a certain fondness. Whenever it comes up again I get kinda nostalgic, of course, but I don't miss KS, because it's still there! I can go play it any time I want and think "yeah I definitely wrote a chunk of this" and I'll be honest that never stops feeling pretty damn neat.
As for your second question, nothing is canon but what's explicitly in the text (especially this far removed from it) but also absolutely, Emi x Misha are a canon ship in my mind - solely because I, personally, think they are cute together.
Bro, I know you didn't make the visuals, but can ANYONE TELL ME... Why does Emi have a bottle of lotion and some used tissues on her bedside table?! One could give a reasonable answer, but I'm very sure it's more significant than a reasonable answer, lol
Well, the lotion keeps her skin moisturized and the tissues are for allergies and colds, and she catches cold during her route, so...
Sorry, it's just a perfectly reasonable answer and there is no special significance to having that stuff in her room. Feel free to make up your own explanation if you really want, I guess?
Hi knave / jack. I'm also living in germany, just wanted to say I started getting my shit together because of Katawa Shoujo's Emi, have only read her route and will not read any other. A big thanks to you. I don't know if you resent this part of your past, but if you do, at least know that you changed real lifes for the better, with your writing. Maybe we will meet somewhere in germany, by fate. I hope so, lol.
I do not resent the whole Emi thing - I have indeed come to regard the whole experience with the sort of fondness that a decade brings (or however long it’s been, I can’t be bothered to check). Hope you enjoy Germany - it’s very nice here, in my experience! I don’t know about meeting somewhere because Germany is a big country (well, not that big but you know what I mean), but hey, stranger things have happened.
Forgot that I’d done a second part of this. I am... sorry?
Whatever, it’s more of that Nancy Drew thing I did. We’re in week seven of quarantine and nothing matters anymore. Certainly not this shit. Other writing stuff (aka getting back to Vanquisher) is coming along slowly but surely - we’re all just kind of dealing with this shit.
Nancy woke up to the sight of a familiar ceiling which was very much not the one in her office, and instead of being passed out in her chair she was in a bed that was also familiar. The knife was no longer in her shoulder, at least, and instead there were stitches covered by a bandage. She was slightly propped up on pillows; presumably to help her avoid aggravating her ribs. It was quiet, and the light coming through the window was low and orange, a sign she’d slept most of the day away. The unmistakable smell of cigarette smoke filled the air, and Nancy wrinkled her nose in annoyance.
“I can’t believe you smoke inside.” she muttered to herself.
Nancy was startled to get a response to her statement. “Fuck you Drew, it’s my house and I’ll do what I want.”
She sat up a little more, wincing as she did so, and looked around the room. George sat in an armchair, an open book in her lap and a lit cigarette hanging out of her mouth. “I guess I can’t argue that.” Nancy replied, and then added, “I thought you quit.”
There was a wry amusement tinged with exhaustion in George’s reply. “Yeah, well, high stress situations tend to reignite old bad habits.”
Nancy let the words sink in, parts of her consciousness still playing catch-up. “Is that what I am? An old, bad habit?”
A fond smile flickered across George’s features that she covered with a scoff and “My worst habit.”
Nancy leaned back and closed her eyes, the ghost of fondness hurting her more than her ribs did. “How did I end up at your place, anyway? Last I remember was calling you at the office.”
This time the amusement was a little more obvious. “You sure you’re really a detective, Drew?” George rolled her eyes. “As soon as I saw the state of you I stopped the bleeding and carried you to my car.”
Nancy wasn’t sure why she was surprised to hear this. George’s compact frame held a strength she’d never been shy about showing, so the idea that she’d thrown Nancy over her shoulder and carried her out seemed obvious. George had, in fact, served as Nancy’s bodyguard on more than one occasion (and on several other more pleasant occasions had demonstrated the ability to support Nancy’s weight for lengthy periods of time).
“Thank you.” she said, quietly. “You didn’t have to-“
“Yes I did, Nancy. You needed help.”
Nancy was not to proud to admit this. “Yes, but you didn’t have to bring me here. Watch over me to make sure I was going to be okay. You could’ve patched me up and left.”
“Who says I’ve been watching over you?”
“The fact that you’re nearly through that book,” Nancy said, not quite able to suppress a smirk, “and the fact that you’ve got about a pack of cigarettes in that ashtray there.”
“Sure,” George said, with an annoyed sigh, “now she’s back to being a detective.”
For a moment, it felt like things used to be – but then everything that had come after came rushing in to fill the silence. Nancy cast about for something to say that wasn’t another apology for the trouble, because she knew it would just annoy George. So instead, she ended up saying the first thing that came to mind.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked what the hell I got myself into yet.”
It hadn’t been the right thing to ask. George’s walls were back up. “I’ve been trying to decide whether or not I want to know.”
“Fair.” Nancy replied, regretting the question and feeling an old bitterness. “I don’t think I could stand a lecture about how I should let this one go, anyway.”
The statement struck a nerve, because George’s tone immediately carried an aggressiveness to it that signaled Nancy was in dangerous territory. “When did I ever tell you to drop a case, Nancy? You’ll have to remind me, because, you know, it’s been a long time since I’ve talked to you when you’re sober.”
That’s because I couldn’t bring myself to look you in the eye sober, Nancy thought, but she shoved the thought aside and sniped back instead. “I seem to recall a case coming between us.”
“It was never the case, it was what the case was doing to you! What it did to us!” George’s voice was raised, now, and the cigarette fell from her lips. She caught it deftly, almost unthinkingly, and leaned forward. “You think I wanted to have my hands tied? You think I liked watching you go on a doomed crusade knowing that it was going to destroy you and unable to stop it?”
“It was never doomed!” Nancy fired back, her own voice raised. “I could have saved him! Could have pulled him back from the edge if I’d just been…” her voice broke, and she shut her eyes against the sting of tears. “Better. Faster. A little more observant. Maybe I could’ve…” her voice trailed off, and she took a deep breath, trying to regain control.
There was the sound of movement, and George’s hand was suddenly on her shoulder, hesitant, almost not entirely there. “You can’t save everyone, Nance. You know that.”
Nancy gritted her teeth, frustrated and angry. “That doesn’t mean I won’t try.”
“I know you won’t, Nance. It’s why…” George stopped herself, recovering with a somewhat half-hearted, “it’s why you’re so insufferably admirable.” The hand, which had been so hesitantly placed to begin with, vanished.
The loss of contact stung, and Nancy hated that it stung, hated that she was so clearly not over what had happened. Hated everything about the situation and being hurt and weak and short on time. She could have tried to make things right, could have been honest to George about how much she missed her. Instead, she retreated, changed the subject. “It’s a frame job. You’ve heard about the union rep down at Mahoney Anvil?”
“Eunice Jackson?” George seemed surprised. “Yeah, I’ve read the news. Killed her husband, according to the police.”
“That’s the one.” Nancy nodded. “Her son hired me to look into it. Said the cops were botching the investigation. Said his mother was going to use her experience as union rep to run for a seat on the City Council and the idea spooked some people enough they went to take her down.”
“I wasn’t aware City Council politics were so cutthroat.”
“They usually aren’t, but Eunice’s politics aren’t exactly ‘traditional River Heights values.’” Nancy explained, unable to keep a certain tone of annoyance out of her voice. “The worry – or so the young Jackson claims – is that Eunice would be the start of something. That folks might start agitating for change and upset the balance of power that so many find useful here.”
George whistled low. “She must be a hell of an orator to get people that scared.”
Nancy nodded. “I’ve talked to some of the people in the union. Not a one of them thinks she did it, and all of them talk about what she’s done for them. Honestly, I think it might be too late to stop what she’s started already.”
“Strong sense of justice, I assume?” George shook her head and gave Nancy a look. “You believe her when she says she didn’t do it.”
“It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve seen someone framed for political reasons.” Nancy said, tightly. “My father, for one.”
“I don’t doubt it.” George said, shrugging. “But there’s no denying it. You’re taking this one personally.”
“So what if I am?” Nancy snapped, defensively. “Is it so bad for me to be invested in a cause?”
George got up and walked back to her chair, where she fished another cigarette out, but made no move to light it. Tension showed in her posture, and she kept her back to Nancy. “You get reckless when you’re invested.” she finally said, trying to keep her tone flat but unable to keep an undercurrent of worry. “And when you used to get reckless, I always had to patch you up, and… I don’t know that I can do that again.”
“I’m sorry.” Nancy said again. “I never wanted to…” she shook her head and sighed. “No, that’s wrong. Of course I did. I called you.” The words kept coming, either because she was wounded and tired or because she felt like she might not get another chance. “I dragged you back into this because I never could find a replacement for you. It’s like… it’s like I’m missing a limb.”
“Stop.” George said, voice fragile. “You can’t say this shit to me. Not now. Not after I’ve just seen what this job’s done to you again.”
“I’m selfish.” Nancy admitted, and this time she couldn’t stop the tears in time. “I don’t trust anyone else, and these people… they’re going to kill me if I can’t drag this shit into the light in time. If that’s what’s going to happen-“
George turned around and spoke in an almost pleading tone. “That’s not what’s going to happen.”
“It might be, George, because I’m not going to stop trying to clear Eunice’s name and they’re going to have to kill me to stop me.” Nancy was breathing hard, her ribs shot a spike of pain to force her to calm down and she winced, drawing a concerned look from George, who was back at her side in an instant, pressing Nancy gently but firmly back down.
“That’s not what’s going to happen.” George repeated, more firmly, and there was a flash of familiar stubbornness in her eyes.
“They’ve got so much influence and money,“ Nancy said, feeling despair creep up on her. “and I’m-“
“Not alone.” George said, interrupting. “I can’t let you do this alone. You know that.”
The words sent a wave of panic through Nancy. She’d been too open, too honest with George. They would come after her if Nancy patched things up. That couldn’t happen.
“You should, George.” Nancy said, maybe a little more harshly than she needed to. She couldn’t put George through another case. It wasn’t fair to her, and Nancy was increasingly of the opinion that she didn’t deserve George’s help in the first place. “I’m not your problem anymore, remember?” She made to get up out of bed. “This was a mistake. I should’ve left you alone.”
This time George was a little less gentle in forcing Nancy back down. “Too late, Drew. Sorry, but I’m not going to let you run off and get killed. For one thing, Bess would never let me hear the end of it. For another…” George leaned in close, and did not fail to notice Nancy’s sharp intake of breath and blush. “Well, I guess I’m just a sucker for girls in trouble.”
Nancy gave in and closed the distance between them. It was desperate and messy and over far too quickly. George rested her forehead against Nancy’s and breathed in deeply.
“I’ll get you something to eat, and then you should get some more rest. If what you say is true, you’ve got a lot of work to do yet.” George pressed another quick kiss to Nancy’s cheek and stood to leave.
Nancy reached out and grabbed George’s hand, stopping her. “Stay with me?”
George gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I’m not going anywhere, Nance. Someone’s got to keep an eye on you.”
Well, I wrote this fucking thing after an offhanded comment made while watching a livestream of someone playing through an old Nancy Drew game, so how the fuck do you think I’m doing?
Nancy Drew and the Knife in Her Shoulder
Nancy’s jaw was killing her. That was the first sensation that came back to her, followed by equally dour reports from the ribs on her right side and her left shoulder, which (as it turned out) had a knife sticking out of it. She tried not to think about how much it would hurt to pull it out and settled for focusing on her immediate surroundings, which were dark and full of bags of garbage – a dumpster? She pushed on the “roof,” such as it was, and was relieved to find it swung open into the soft light of the dawn easily.
Well, at least he’d been smart enough not to kill her, she thought. This was just a strong discouragement; a polite reminder that she needed to keep her nose out of his fucking business and (as far as she was concerned) an admission of guilt. The unspoken part of the message this experience was meant to send was that while she could shrug this off as part of the cost of doing business, her friends and loved ones were far less used to taking a beating.
She levered herself out of the dumpster and had to bite back a cry of pain she landed, the impact jostling everything that hurt and a few things that didn’t for good measure. She patted herself down and went fishing in her pockets for her phone, which was, of course, dead. Nancy walked gingerly out of the alleyway she’d found herself in and looked for any landmarks. It was the alleyway between the post office and Barbara’s Beans, a store that she was never sure how exactly it stayed in business, but it was still there.
Okay, first order of business: get this knife out. Nancy tried not to laugh at the situation, and hoped that the slow drip of blood staining her jacket was slow enough that she’d be able to make it to George’s place without fainting. That she and George hadn’t been speaking to one another for the last several months was not something that entered her current state of mind – whether through blood loss or just an unwillingness to revisit the memory of their last fight (or a combination of both, perhaps) was immaterial.
“Okay Drew,” she muttered, “one foot in front of the other. You’ve been through worse.”
She wasn’t actually certain that was true. The older she got, the worse the cases seemed to be. This current case had sent her down a rabbit hole of corruption that would have blown teenage Nancy’s mind – and that was before the body of one of the city’s leading prosecutors had been fished out of the river. Nancy marked off landmarks as she walked. The pizzeria. The drug store. Her father’s old law office, now converted to serve as her own office and in a far less attractive state of repair due to a perpetual lack of funds. She paused, shaking her head to clear the darkness creeping in at the edges of her vision.
Phone. There was a phone in her office. She could call George there, hope that she’d pick up. If it came to it, she could call Bess – who would probably insist on a hospital visit that Nancy couldn’t really afford, but it would be better than dying. A last resort. Bess had been on Nancy to give up the detective game for years, and Nancy didn’t want to get into one of those conversations again if she could help it.
Her keys were still on her, fortunately, and she staggered into her office and made directly for the phone. She dialed George’s number from memory (there were two numbers she’d never forgotten, even if only one of them was useful anymore) and slumped in her desk chair, trying not to think about the way her limbs seemed to be going cold and her vision was darkening. Her heart was beating faster now too, but that was probably due to the ringing on the other side of the line more than anything else. Just as Nancy was about to hang up and call Bess, there was a click and the rough sound of a newly-conscious (and annoyed) George.
“Drew, I told you not to call me when you’re drunk.” George had only ever called Nancy by her last name when she was mad.
Nancy swallowed and spoke, her own voice seeming faint and far away to her. “Sorry, George. Wish it were just that, but I’m in a jam.”
Something in her voice must have given away just how bad of a state she was in, because all annoyance left George’s voice and was replaced with concern. “You’re at the office? What happened?”
Nancy felt so tired, suddenly. “Had a meeting with some friends that ended with a knife in my shoulder. I know I don’t deserve it, but… hoped you might help.”
“You’re stabbed? Jesus, Nancy. I’m on my way.”
“Sorry.” Nancy muttered, feeling consciousness wandering away from her. “I’m only ever causing trouble for you. I‘m a bad friend.”
“Shut up, I’ll be there in five minutes, okay Nance?”
Nancy had just enough time to mutter something that was either “thank you” or “love you” before she passed out again.
A Series of Disconnected Thoughts, Cast into the Void in No Particular Order
1. I’ve been finding myself thinking more and more about Kill Six Billion Demons recently. Not just because it’s absolutely gorgeous artwork and Moebius-meets-prog-metal stylings are extremely my shit (KSBD is responsible for adding Gojira to my rotation of workout music, and that alone has me in its debt), but because I can really appreciate a main character who is a walking disaster coming to some kind of enlightenment through a combination of getting her ass handed to her repeatedly, making questionable decisions, and basically just deciding to struggle forwards because I don’t know, what the fuck else is there to do? It’s hardly original (see: basically any shounen about The Power of Friendship and Not Giving Up) but damn if the presentation of it in this particular case isn’t particularly delightful. Plus it gave us the image of a giant hulking demon wearing a jacket that says KILL BOSS and that’s rad.The creator of KSBD is also co-creator, as it happens, of the newly released Lancer TTRPG, which I backed on Kickstarter and will, one day, get a rad fucking hardcover copy of (but for now I’m reading through the pdf and swearing oaths that one day I will play it). Anyway, as someone who also got where he is through a series of questionable decisions and getting his ass handed to him by life in general (oh, and an enormous amount of luck), I can relate. Plus the phrase “Reach heaven through violence,” while kind of terrible on the surface, feels good to shout at yourself while you’re off for a run.
2. Part of this whole exercise thing - a side-effect of it, if you wanna call it that - is that generally I feel better about myself like in general. I’ve mentioned that before. What it doesn’t do, of course, is magically mean that I’m now 100% good and not still dogged by a persistent sense of self-loathing that I’ve just had to accept will never really go away. Like for example: I’ve lost 35 kg since starting this whole gym thing, except you might remember the goal was 40. I still haven’t hit that goal, and frankly I’ve spent the last like three months bouncing around the same like, 3 kg zone because I’ve been traveling a lot and that basically fucks up my workout and eating routine. It’s frustrating, and it sure does let the part of me that knows deep down that I’m a fat fucker and always will be no matter what I do run wild from time to time. Which is, I’m coming to understand, just gonna always be there. This stuff doesn’t go away! Ever!
Which doesn’t mean it’s right, even a little. You tune it out and throw yourself into battle with it over and over again. You get bloodied and broken and claw back and then you get bloodied and broken some more. Insert that gif from Princess Bride of Westly saying LIFE IS PAIN, HIGHNESS here. Thing is, there’s something about the struggle that’s nice. I am not sure how motivated I’d be to do anything if part of it wasn’t motivated by the desire to prove my dumb brain wrong about, uh, me. If I wasn’t fighting the various little demons that plague me every so often, I doubt I’d be so well-adjusted. I certainly wouldn’t be mentally healthy. None of this makes sense as I read it back, of course - it sounds like I’m saying “boy it’s nice to be miserable,” which isn’t true. Being miserable sucks shit! I don’t recommend it! But it is nice to see misery coming and punch it in the face (metaphorically speaking). Sometimes I think the thing that makes me go to the gym and work so hard (this sounds like I’m bragging, but I can assure you I’m not - “work so hard” means “not collapse and fall off the elliptical after five minutes because oh god I don’t want to be here”) is out of some desire for self-annihilation through pushing myself past my physical limits. Reach heaven through violence (see, I told you it sounded cool).
3. The world has gotten really fucking bad for a lot of people, and I don’t know that it will get better for them any time soon. In fact, given the latest talk from the ol’ UN Climate Change report, it’s gonna get even worse. I would very much prefer that were not the case! It’s motivation enough to get out and vote and shit, at least for me - and as someone who is, you know, ridiculously privileged, that’s the absolute least I can do. Which is why I try to do more, mostly involving donating money to causes that seem like they’re able to cause the sort of trouble that needs to be caused. Or just use expertise to protect the people I don’t know how to protect, because I’m a lot of things, and one of them happens to be smart enough to know that I don’t know shit. So I make sure people that do know shit have the money they need. Pretty straightforward, I think.
The other thing I try to do, because giving money isn’t really something I think about much at all (I’m stupidly fucking fortunate to have a job that pays well, remember), is occasionally go out and actually be present at protests and the like - there are a lot of climate protests and they’re all a good time. Occasionally it’s worth overcoming one’s intense social anxiety to do so. Lord knows it’s significantly less of a risk for me to be out shouting at cops than most.
4. She-Ra might be one of the best shows out there. There’s something nice about a show that both does and does not present a simple world. Yes, the Horde is bad. Like, objectively bad! They do a lot of looting and subjugating and are generally just deeply not chill people.On the other hand, the people who make up the Horde are still people, and I have a lot of time for a show that can manage to humanize its Big Bad Villain whilst still making it very clear they are still, you know, not good. It’s messy, and complicated, and sad, because sometimes you have to fight people you used to be friends with! Sometimes you have to make the call that hey, we can’t be friends anymore, because I can’t support the things you’re doing anymore. I’ve made that call before - I bet everyone has, at some point (if you haven’t, I’m sure you’ll have to eventually). Fortunately for me, it’s never been that difficult of a choice, if only because the people I had to go against weren’t people I’d known for very long.
Anyway, that’s part of it - you gotta just cut people out sometimes. There’s more to it though, because the other thing the show believes is that everyone - even the real shitty people - can change. It doesn’t mean everything’s forgiven, and it doesn’t erase all the bad shit, but they can still change. It’s worth changing, even if it isn’t a cure-all.
So yeah, I like She-Ra a lot. It’s also just well-written, and funny, and it’s a real good time to see a bunch of diverse characters running around having adventures and being fuckin’ rad. Plus, they’ve shown an incredible willingness to completely change the stakes from season to season - the end of season four in particular is the equivalent of detonating all the things you thought were important. It pulls a bait and switch so ruthless that I might have applauded if I wasn’t so self-conscious about making noise that my neighbors might hear. The combination of season 3 and 4 was a masterclass on raising the stakes and then explaining that actually, you were playing for stakes even higher than you could’ve thought possible. Oh, and the people you thought you could trust were just using you, and hey, what if we got rid of the thing that you’ve more or less defined yourself by for the entire show? Good luck in season five, motherfucker! I’m a fan, is what I’m saying.
6. Work on Vanquisher 2103 continues apace. I mentioned this before, but we’re doing a once-a-month schedule while the holidays and work beat my ass into the ground, and as it turns out I really enjoy taking a full month to write a chapter. It’s a comically slow pace, but it’s working for me and hopefully the fact that the chapters have tended to be a little longer (and allowed me to expand on ideas a little more, and do a little more research here and there) makes it worth the longer wait. I’d like this thing to be good! There’s a part of my brain, again, that will always insist that nobody reads this and it’s bad and I’m fucking up, constantly - that point, at least, is probably accurate. I am writing characters who in theory have life experiences that are very much Not Mine, which involves a lot of reading things from people who would know better than I do. It’s nerve-wracking, and the only thing I am bone-deep certain of is that I’ll fuck up and hopefully y’all will forgive me for fucking up when that happens. I’ll keep reading and refining and eventually maybe it’ll be okay. Hopefully, anyway.
7. I went to Ireland and guys, Ireland is bullshit. I am offended by its gorgeous cliff-sides and open grasslands and heart-rending beauty. The immense friendliness of the people I met and the fact that you can’t sit in a pub without hearing some dude play a jaunty reel on a tin whistle or accordion or something is a personal insult. I was Arthur Dent angrily demanding to know why this bloody fish is so good the whole time.
I cultivated an immense drinking habit while there. I was also approached by a random German tourist who somehow clocked that I could speak German and we shouted about socialism for an hour auf Deutsch. I met some woman from Louisiana and we ended up having drinks a couple nights in a row to talk about traveling in general and Germany in particular, because her ex-husband is German. There were some Swedish retirees who were both very pleased by their country’s social safety net and also depressingly sour about the fact that refugees got cheap dental care - we might have had some harsh words exchanged before more drinks helped smooth over our frank discussion of differing viewpoints. I had to explain American health care to some people from the UK who were surprisingly gung-ho about the idea of privatized medicine until they talked to me (one of them talked about how the UK used to be an Empire and could be again in such a way that made me want to throw things. We did not talk for very long because I couldn’t fuckin’ handle it). These were strangers that I willingly engaged, because I was having an adventure, and I guarantee none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been going to the gym and committed to the idea of proving the voice in my head that tells me I’m an awkward mess that nobody would ever want to talk to in their life wrong (also, let’s be honest, if I hadn’t had several pints of cider at the time).
By the end of the trip if I heard one more pub singer’s version of Whisky in the Jar though, that I was gonna produce my pistol and fucking shoot myself in the head.
Go to Ireland if you can. If you live there, fuck you how dare you live somewhere that rad.
8. I didn’t have an eighth thing but I’m committed to this “each thing is numbered” bit which means that even the end of this thing has to follow the trope. This is the end of the post where I say “okay bye I’ll be back the next time I get the urge to throw a bunch of highly unpolished ideas out.”
I mentioned this somewhere, probably on Twitter before I finally got the fuck off Twitter forever and relegated it to just pushing notifications when I post on not-a-hell-site (except, of course, I’m writing this on tumblr, so what the fuck do I know), but just a little over seven months ago, after putting it off for far too long, I made what has turned out to be the most important purchase since paying the movers to send my shit over to Germany and bought a gym membership.
This was a big deal for a couple of reasons:
1. Perhaps the most obvious, this was the natural progression from taking daily hikes to doing yoga in a very gradual effort to get my shit together, healthwise. I am, and have always been, a big dude - but being a big dude comes with the responsibility to maintain the bigness in a muscle way and not a fatty fat fat piece of shit way. I did a bad job of this, starting around 2011 and continuing up through, oh, let’s say 2015.
2. That I felt like I was, you know, at a level where going to the gym would not be a comedy of errors and injuries was in and of itself a process of undoing the unbelievable amount of damage I’d done to myself physically during what I generally refer to mentally as the Dark Year, aka 2012 when I was deeply depressed, living in New York, and (about half that time) unemployed and 100% edging closer and closer to suicidal. I ate a lot and didn’t exercise and basically became a gross, self-loathing heap. At one point, my mother threatened to stop letting me visit, because she couldn’t stand to see what I was doing to myself! Fond memories. Good thing I found a job and moved the fuck out of New York, or this blog woudn’t have updated for years.
3. Okay, here’s the big one: unlike every other time I have Actually Buckled Down to engage in the act of physical fitness, I had no external motivation to do it. This very blog has an entry detailing the last time I tried to get into shape, and it may (not) surprise you (in the slightest) to learn that it was because of a woman! This time, however, there’s no woman, or sports team, or anything at all, actually! It was just me deciding that maybe I would, you know, stop telling myself “hey I bet you totally could still handle a cardio-heavy workout any time now” and just fucking prove it. I judged I was as healthy as yoga and not eating complete garbage all the time was gonna get me, and made the call. My brother had recently come to a similar decision and so we kind of traded notes, but ultimately I did it because, for the first time (probably) ever, I decided it was worth doing. For me! I was... worth that kind of maintenance, because I would maybe feel better, and I was worth... feeling better about?
Anyway, I’m 20 kg lighter now (close to 21) and there’s no sign of stopping. I had to buy new pants, because my old pants were comically large, and now I’m wearing the same size I wore in, I shit you not, 2010, the year before everything started to really go to shit. That alone would be crazy enough, without all the shit where I don’t snore anymore and sleep better and, shockingly, am even more productive at work (plus, you know, I started writing Vanquisher 2103 around the same time).
I’ve also allowed myself to be talked into being far more sociable in the office, and in a real fucking turnaround, even vaguely considered the idea of trying to meet new people for a while there. Some of that started before the gym visits did (I found a gaming group and such like a year ago), but I feel like the process has accelerated. I agreed, totally of my own free will, to participate in a mini-Ironman thing this fall, and I am excited about the possibility of it. Our office had its “hey we don’t do Christmas parties but here’s a party about how it’s 2019 now” party this past weekend, and instead of finding a place to hunker down with my phone and drinking until I decide to sneak out of the proceedings, I willingly initiated conversations with people I have worked with for over two years but never met. Just to make it more difficult, I did most of it in German, because I’m at the point where I can do that now (even if I’m still convinced my German is a series of word crimes and eventually the police are going to arrest me).
Which hey, this all sounds rad, right? Like come on, this is the sort of turnaround that people write shitty motivational books about. And yes, it is rad, you’re absolutely right.
Except for this other thing, where stuff I just assumed was true about myself has very much turned out to not be true. Some of it is just bad self-esteem talking - one of the things I thought was always going to be true was “you’re a fat piece of shit” and yeah, I’ve set a goal of another 20 kg to lose before I hit the completely arbitrary goal I set for myself when I started going to the gym, but it feels like it won’t take too long to get there. It’s in reach, and I’ll definitely be able to do it, and that’s deeply weird for me. Another thing I basically just assumed was true was that I am not really a social being, which is to say I am better off not being sociable. But I keep doing these social things, and they keep being nice, and meeting new people was... actually nice and not as deeply exhausting as I remember it being?
I feel like I’m so far from who I was even two years ago that I wouldn’t recognize myself, and that’s vaguely terrifying. I’ve been an Extremely Single Person for like... look, let’s just call it a decade (being hung up on someone for years perhaps had something to do with that), and it sounds weird to say that I’m pretty happy with that state of affairs these days, but even weirder is to idly start thinking shit like “hey what if I made an effort to like, Meet Someone?” and not instantly collapse into a panic attack. The act of actually considering the idea feels like lighting a torch and looking at the very nice wooden house I’ve built with a devilish gleam in my eye.
Maybe that urge will pass, or maybe it’ll lead somewhere. I don’t have the foggiest fucking clue anymore, because I’ve spent like the last year discovering things about myself that turned out to be Untrue. Shit’s gotten weird, is what I’m saying. I’m not sure whether or not I mind.
Anyway, there’s your semi-annual long-ass post from Hive that isn’t just plugging Vanquisher 2103. Except for there, where I just linked it.
Part four of the new Vanquisher arc just went up, and if you haven’t been reading it I am very disappointed in you.
If you want to ask me questions or complain about how the story sucks, there’s a Vanquisher-specific ask box over here, or you can ask me less specific questions over here and I will even respond to them, most of the time.
Anyway, I’ve been traveling a lot, and still have more travel to do before the month is out, and then I will retreat to my apartment and not leave it to do anything that is not going to work/the gym for a while. Like, at least a couple months. Traveling is fuckin’ exhausting. If we are all very lucky that will mean that I will get lots of Vanquisher 2103 written. If we are not lucky it will mean that I play a lot of Street Fighter V.
Transcript of the last known recording of individual known as Vanquisher, aka Alayna Cane, 23 December (estimated) 2099
“If you’re watching this, well… I figure we both know what that means. That’s sort of why I’m choosing to do it – I can’t bear the thought of you getting the last word in. Consider this my apology, or maybe consider it my explanation for why it all ended up this way. Just… do me a favor and don’t blame yourself for this, okay?
I guess it was my fault in the end for being naïve. I was so certain we’d won, especially after all that work we’d done to trace the source of the… ugh, I can’t believe I’m about to say it, ‘the Conspiracy.’ There was no way they’d be able to wriggle out of it, seeing as how they’d left their fingerprints all over everything. Plus, it seemed like everyone had planned to double cross everyone else, so we had all these recordings of them planning the whole thing. Ironclad, right?
Well, you know by now that’s completely fucking wrong. Everything’s gotten… complicated in a way that I’m not a huge fan of. I mean, how long do I have until she realizes I don’t have any kind of leverage anymore and comes after me? At least, not unless I can fix this somehow, which is, you know, what I’m trying to do. And uh, why I had to make this. For you.”
Note: There is a rather lengthy pause here, and the recording appears to stop and start again.
“I should have been smarter. I should have seen this coming – it was written all over the disagreements we’ve been having, but I thought she’d see reason. Reason from my end, anyway. If I’d known… Maybe we could have figured something out that didn’t involve all this. I wish I hadn’t had to…. Do what I did. We were supposed to be a team. I thought she knew that. I thought she understood that. I don’t know, maybe it was inevitable, given everything, that it would end up like this. For all I know it’s baked into her nature. I don’t know that I believe that, but it’s certainly a possibility. The only thing I know for certain is that I can’t just let this go. I’ve got to try to stop it before it gets out of hand. Stay safe, okay? I… well, you know.”
Recording ends. Intelligence indicates the recording was made two days before the Black Christmas of 2100 occurred
[see file ‘d3m3t3r Consortium’ for further details – S.A. Karl Hernandez].
Drone footage of the Vanquisher from the event shows her being struck by gunfire and falling into the lake. Analysis at the scene revealed significant blood loss, likely fatal. Recovery efforts failed to find a body, though a prosthetic arm thought to belong to the Vanquisher and several other pieces of equipment, including a cane and remote device for her car
[a complete list of Vanquisher-related items seized during the investigation is later in this file]
Hey, Just discovered Vanquisher and am looking forward to reading it! Also, Emi's route was my favorite in KS. I dated a girl for 8 years who had lost a parent to a car accident, so I can say that Emi's grief surrounding that event was beautifully written. Looking forward to future projects!
I am also looking forward to future projects, namely finally getting the next bit of Vanquisher off the ground. Hope you enjoy the read!
Almost 4 years ago, you've published "Getting on with Her". It was a very relatable and all too familiar piece. So, where are you now? Is she still in the picture?
I have no idea when this came in, so I apologize for not answering up until now.
She is not in the picture. I have been led to believe this is sometimes how the world works, and made my peace with it a long time ago. Like many things, I’m pretty sure I’ve come out better than I was before in the deal, so that’s nice.
This isn’t entirely accurate as a title, as it is more of a collection of the various things I assume everyone deals with at one point or another, and how they are occasionally some Absolute Bullshit and really, the only reason I’m bothering to talk about them here in Public is because maybe it’s important to remember that yeah, this is totally normal for me and maybe totally normal for you, and we will all make it through this thing called Life.
I met new people last week. Four of them - six if you count the three year old kid and her, at a guess, 1 year old brother (the three year old kid was the friendliest - a high bar to clear when all the others were also immensely welcoming to the weird foreign man who showed up speaking sort of okay German that was 90% grammatically incorrect, probably. German grammar is like a fucking labyrinth to me - not because it’s particularly hard, per se, but because there are so many articles, and they’re all gendered to hell, and I can’t ever remember which is which). Forty minutes before I met these people I stood in front of the house where I was going to meet these people and fought the urge to walk back to the train station, board the train, and send an apologetic message to the guy (who I only had talked to via texting, who I only was aware of the existence of because he was the brother of a friend of a coworker who played some sort of matchmaker role when he heard me mention that I enjoyed tabletop gaming) saying I was sick or something. Instead I gritted my teeth and, because I didn’t want to show up forty minutes early, walked around the neighborhood. It relaxed me to do so, and forty minutes later I headed back in the direction of the house. There were two people in the yard (plus the kid) and I almost, because nobody knew what I looked like, walked right by again. Instead I didn’t. We played a game called Zombicide, and I found out my host was a big Terry Pratchett fan, and also a big Warhammer and Warhammer 40k player at one point (space orks, no less).
By the end of the night, I was mildly drunk and we switched to English for a bit. One of the other dudes, a man with a beard length that spoke of dedication to a beard (which I don’t have - generally I trim mine down short in the summer because the summer is Fucking Hot), revealed that he’d spent a few years in England which made sense as his English was very British. We exchanged phone numbers at the end of the evening, because this group only gets together once every month tops, and we’d gotten along well enough that meeting up more than that seemed like it might have been a good idea.
I do not, as a general rule, assume people want to be around me - or indeed, want to have conversation with me - so I rarely initiate conversation. So it was with this fellow, who has been the one to initiate a few conversations with me since last week. The appreciation I feel to him for shouldering the burden of starting conversations is palpable, it carries an actual weight that settles in the middle of the chest. We’re meeting up tomorrow afternoon for lunch and probably some drinks; I assume this is how normal people operate when they are making friends. I have to assume, because the last time I made new friends it was 2010, and the game might have changed since then, I don’t know. I expect we will get along and probably have a good time. There is a version of the future where this is the case, and it is the version I prefer to assume will happen. The other versions, where it’s just a painfully awkward few hours of two people realizing they do not have anything in common, are unlikely - the dude watches Doctor Who, I can just bullshit about Daleks if I have to. They aren’t as likely, and because I can tell myself this I can tamp down the normal social anxiety that comes from it. The version of the future where we become friends, of course, carries its own set of anxieties.
You might be surprised to learn this, but some of Emi’s character - the bits that involve her reluctance to get close to people, in this case - were just me writing my own anxieties out. My parents have not died suddenly (or at all), but I had a buddy die for no goddamn reason as a Young Teen which more or less did a real fucking number on me, mentally, that took a good long while for me to work my way out of. I came out of that seven or eight year process of working through that just in time to throw myself recklessly into not just being friends with new people, but there was a point where I fell pretty recklessly in love for a while there, and it was a good experience aside from the part where it all fell apart (it had the good grace to fall apart nicely, in a way that did not involve heartbreak that was too painful to get through). Then, of course, possibly because we live in a world that is chaotic and sometimes bad shit happens and then continues to happen, another of my friends died, also suddenly, also for no goddamn reason. I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, or possibly here in an earlier post, but when you read descriptions of people howling with grief and assume that is a figure of speech, it is not. I discovered this through the action of collapsing on the floor of my apartment, curled around the cell phone where I’d just said goodbye to his comatose body, making a keening noise that I did not know my throat was capable of making. Having been through this once before, you could be forgiven for thinking I would be better equipped to handle such a shock. I was not. I don’t think you ever get used to that. I had a grandparent die about a year before that and it was sort of a resigned acceptance - it hurt, but you expect people that are very old to eventually die. When it’s not someone old there’s a certain deep knowledge that potential has been wasted that makes it worse. It’s an act of theft, and I expect that if I end up being wrong and meet some kind of god when I die, I will hold them fucking responsible for it.
So yes, literally part of the reason I am reluctant to make new friends is because that adds to the tally of future funerals to attend - or miss - which is not a healthy way of looking at new friends. I know enough of life to realize that there’s a lot of fun that comes in between those funerals - the sort of fun that is worth having - so it doesn’t come up much. On the whole, my worry is more about coming off as an asshole than a distaste of funerals, but it’s there.
I’ve been dreaming of them both, recently. We have long conversations about bullshit that doesn’t matter, and eventually I remember they’re dead and we have to say goodbye and I wake up. Sometimes, even though this never happened IRL, as the kids are saying, they meet each other. They get along, or at least the simulacra of them that exist in my memory get along. I like to think they would have. There’s a comfort there, even if it breaks my heart a little to wake up and realize that whoops, they’re actually dead every time.
Death used to scare me. I don’t know if it does anymore. I’ve not been around for particularly long by most standards, but something about recklessly diving into this whole transatlantic move made me figure that at the very least I’ve fucking gone for it, whatever “it” happens to be. I have roughly a thousand anxieties, and some ugly goddamn self esteem issues, but I’ve somehow managed to get them under enough control that I can do stuff like meet new people, or decide that fuck it, I’ll run the damn D&D campaign myself. Or I guess write a book?
Or more to the point, agree to grab lunch with a dude who seems like he might be cool. Because he might be, and my campaign needs a 4th dude because we’re one short now.
Just wanted that your writing in KS is simply incredible. Your character arc of Emi is just so amazing and really should be studied as an example of how to arc a character. The scene at the end of act 3 that you get if Hisao fights with Emi then apologizes and wins her back is not only the best writing in all of KS, but one of the best scenes I have ever read, ever. Please keep writing! You're one of the best, and the world is in desperate need of amazing writers like you!
Oh hey, thanks. I vaguely remember spending a lot of time writing those bits in particular, so I’m glad it paid off.
Also y’all know I wrote a whole other thing, right? It’s up for free over here? Take a looooook.
If you happen to have made the mistake of following me on twitter, you’ve probably noticed something, this last few days - namely that I finally achieved the dream of running a D&D game this past Saturday and immensely enjoyed it. I enjoyed it so much that I haven’t stopped thinking about it basically since then, and the fact that I am not doing it again this weekend (we’re only meeting twice a month, because some of us have like, wives and kids and social obligations, none of which are things I deal with) is quietly infuriating, even if it means that I have time to do other important things, such as come up with a bunch of shit for when we play again the Saturday after next. You know, normal things that people do on their weekend.
One of the big things which appeals to me is that being a DM scratches the itch I find myself having on a regular basis to make a game - the only problem is I have no programming expertise beyond hazy memories of C++ and Java courses I took in 2003 and 2004, respectively - and given the fact that I barely remember anything that happened last week, much less 14-15 years ago, that ain’t much (I guess I could count a little experience with Twine as well, although I haven’t gone back to it in ages). On the other hand, the whole point of D&D is to give you a set of rules to do basically whatever the fuck you feel like, assuming you are into the setting and don’t mind rolling some dice. Tabletop RPGs have always been different ways of imposing a modicum of order on playing pretend (so you can’t just say a dude misses you, a dice roll does that), and the thing I’ve liked the most about 5th edition is that it almost pulls back from the strict grid-based rules of 4th edition. Don’t get me wrong, I played a couple 4th ed campaigns in my day and enjoyed the hell out of it, but it was very combat-heavy and that has been less and less of a priority for me the older I get. Then again, if a goblin wishes to catch these hands, I will gladly oblige.
What 5th ed has tended to add in its various supplemental materials (which yes of course I’ve spent like $400 on various books over the last two years) are extra things to do that aren’t combat focused. The tools are still there if you want a good old fashioned dungeon crawl, but even the prebuilt adventures (the campaign we started Saturday is using Tales from the Yawning Portal’s “Sunless Citadel” dungeon as its jumping-off point) are full of just... other shit to do that isn’t fighting. Indeed, the books seem to encourage players (and the DM) to come up with non-combat things to do. As someone who’s harbored a (not-so) secret desire to make a CRPG since playing Baldur’s Gate, being able to do an analogue version of it is downright delightful. I get to tell a big dumb sprawling story, and like all big dumb sprawling stories in games the players will probably only see a fraction of it. All that prep is worth it though, for being able to pull a name for the farmer drinking in an inn too early, and give the party a sidequest to go guard his cattle for a night. I had those names written down beforehand, you see. He’s got a whole history. The party will never interact with him again, because I gave him the world’s most annoying voice.
Some of the NPCs are provided by the sourcebooks, of course. Meepo, who they’ll run into at the beginning of the next session, is not my creation - he’s part of the adventure as-written. The enigmatic Lady Cysgod, who sent them out to this busted-ass citadel in the first place? She’s all mine, and maybe I’ll get to tell the players more about her as the campaign progresses. The same goes for a few villains on the horizon who may or may not make their presence known once the Citadel is clear. Assuming, of course, they make it out of the citadel alive.
I mean just because I like the idea of having my players run around a town talking to grumpy, recently-arrived blacksmiths who might have some sexual tension going on with the bitter, alcoholic shopkeeper (ask the owner of the inn, he and his husband are a good source of gossip) who has a deep family connection with the town which she doesn’t even know about, doesn’t mean I’m not willing to bring some goblins to request the party catch these hands. This is Dungeons and motherfucking Dragons, after all.
it Valentine’s Day, generally seen as an opportunity for people like me (aka socially-awkward misanthropes) to trumpet their misanthropy (kind of like people who make SPORTSBALL jokes during the Super Bowl) about holidays centered around romance seems like a great time to talk about how I’ve been watching Daria again.
Which is to say, of course, that the thing I like best about Daria is how its characters avoid being misanthropic stereotypes held up for mockery. Hell, the titular heroine is, for all her displays of superiority and ability to avoid the herd mentality of most of her peers, remarkably normal. It’s part of the joke, I think. Daria doesn’t have her shit together more than those around her, she’s just a little more observant than most. Like her buddy Jane says at one point, the difference between Daria and the rest of the cast is that Daria thinks about stuff more. That doesn’t make her better necessarily, it just puts her outside her peer group. She’s also socially awkward and doesn’t know how to handle feelings (which hey, I can relate to and I’m a grown-ass man). But really, even her peers are capable of thinking when the situation calls for it (the paintball episode is a great example of this, as the vapid cheerleader Brittany turns into a regular General MacArthur, and in earlier episodes demonstrates an interest in Shakespeare, the quintessential “smart kid” author).
Really, Daria is just a show about muddling through a world that seems by and large to be absurd - the regular Sick Sad World headlines play just as well now as they did then, and are depressingly prescient at times. It’s about figuring out who you are and what you want to be, which is a process that I am assuming never quite ends. At least I hope it doesn’t because I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Which is, of course, why it’s been so nice to go back to it.
There’s the obvious nostalgia of course - I would have just been freshly 13 when it started, and at the time had started learning drums, finding out about that whole grunge scene thing which was already basically dead, and beginning to develop a crush on my best friend’s older sister (who was decidedly what got me into the whole flannel and jeans look), while also being an outsider who was most comfortable in the company of fellow outcasts. Gee, I wonder how I could have possibly related to a show about an outsider who was comfortable in the company of outcasts and didn’t fit in to the popular group, and happened to have a crush on her best friend’s older brother. It’s a real goddamn mystery that we may never solve. Puzzling.
Watching Daria in part is remembering trips to my (much more well-off) relatives where they had cable television and I could flip around a billion (probably actually like 30) channels, one of which was MTV where I stumbled across Daria and was like “oh hey hello there” and then, after figuring out when it was on by reading a TV Guide (which is a thing you used to have to do), plotted ways to be in the presence of a television with cable access as often as I could, with varying levels of success. This went on for years. Eventually I couldn’t be bothered because I was in high school and busy watching Evangelion or Aqua Teen Hunger Force or whatever the hell it was I did in high school. So ironically enough, the point at which I would have probably related more to the show is the point I wasn’t watching anymore. I definitely still caught it here and there, but as it was off the air by my sophomore year I didn’t really see it much.
Now of course I am appreciating different things about the show - its feminist tone, its message that it’s okay to just fucking go for stuff as long as you don’t mind failing (there’s a conversation between Daria and Trent at one point where she talks about his being in a band as being worth doing even if he fails because he’s at least chasing the dream - again, for a show that uses Trent’s slacker/dropout lifestyle for jokes it is remarkably sincere on this point) or people thinking you’re weird (after all, neither Jane nor Daria really ever budge on who they are or what they want to do - again, there’s a whole episode about their refusal to change an art piece they made on principle). As a dude who is actively in the process of putting together a book that maybe nobody will want or buy, it helps to hear that message now and again.
It’s also about how messy families can be (both the Lane and Morgendorfer household have their fair share of nonsense) but at the same time they care about each other because, well, they’re family. Both Daria and Quinn help each other out from time to time - not because of bribery, but because *sigh* it’s family and somewhere under everything they care about each other in their own way. I had a far less contentious relationship with my siblings, but we definitely had our fair share of fights. I’d also still probably go to great lengths to help them, even if my older brother has become a giant asshole over the last... decade. I’d just be a little more grumpy about it.
This had nothing to do with Valentine’s day at all, as it turns out. Though if you want to twist my arm about it, I’m kind of bummed that when they did the whole anniversary thing a few years back and said where the characters would be now Jane and Daria weren’t living together in lesbian bliss. I mean come on.
I had a long intro written for this but Tumblr ate it. Long and short of it: I wrote this about 2.5 years ago in bits on the forums because I’d been thinking about KS again, and now I’m putting it up somewhere a bit more permanent and easier to find, although it’ll be buried under other posts soon enough. Either way please enjoy this ridiculous thing which I’ve decided to title What Happened After Emi Graduated:
The end of high school and the beginning of college is an unwelcome transition for some, particularly those who, perhaps, spent more time on athletics than academics. Such is the situation that one Emi Ibarazaki finds herself facing down a few days after graduation. It hardly helps that her grades have never been the best, and it helps far less that her dreams of running professionally are hamstrung by a distinct lack of collegiate teams made up of the disabled. If she wants to run professionally, it seems, she’d need to take matters into her own hands--and, as her mother keeps hinting, she’ll need a fallback plan, which means that yes, she still needs to go to college even though there’s not a fucking running program that will get her where she needs to go.
Unfortunately it turns out she’s put off applying too long, so when the next year rolls around Emi is left with nothing to do but train and laze around the house (at least until her mother unceremoniously kicks her out to find a job, because while Meiko loves her daughter almost more than life itself she also can’t stand to watch her daughter mope about the house). So after a year spent working at the local convenience store (and hating it), Emi finds a good physical education program and somehow manages to get some tuition assistance (which a voice in the back of her head tells her is down to the good PR the school will get from its appearance of openness and diversity), packs up her things, and moves into student housing. She’s excited to be in a new place and meet new people, because she’s already drifted out of touch with her former teammates (not to mention Rin, who vanishes into some art gallery opening shortly after graduation and never really reappears) and the one thing Emi can’t stand is being alone, even though she’s kept everyone at arm’s length for most of her life. The room is a shared bedroom, which is a little weird, but it has a nice bathroom that Emi figures will make the whole thing worthwhile.
Emi’s roommate snores so loudly she jerks awake the first night thinking the school has come under attack.Once she realizes this is not the case she lays awake in bed staring at the ceiling and quietly thinking of different ways to kill her roommate before sheer exhaustion claims her and she oversleeps for her first class. She buys earplugs that afternoon and tries to maintain an optimistic outlook, even though she feels like this might have made an enormous mistake and landed herself in hell.
A week in, it strikes her that she has failed miserably at making any friends apart from her roommate who, snoring aside, is actually quite pleasant and maybe even a little sweet. Emi had been worried her legs would be a topic of discussion, but her roommate barely seems to notice or care. The two get to know one another in the inevitable way that roommates get to know one another, and sooner or later Emi is able to admit to herself that they are friends of a sort--though the relationship is that of convenience. Emi is not particularly invested in the friendship, and when her roommate gets a boyfriend a month later and begins spending less and less time in the room, Emi is okay with the change and even appreciates the quiet at night, up to a point.
The month after her roommate more or less vanishes, Emi is suddenly struck by a loneliness so profound that she actually feels the weight of it pressing her down. She spends the following week in a haze of depression that takes her completely by surprise and results in at least one phone call to her mother, who patiently listens to Emi’s woes, heart breaking, and suggests that perhaps her daughter is just going through a rough patch and offers what advice she can, having enough lived long enough to have some experience in feeling lost and alone.
The phone call is enough to get Emi out and running again, and she is shocked at just how far she’s fallen in a week, which makes her feel worse about herself, which threatens to send her mood even further down the drain. The few times Emi runs into her roommate, she manages to put on a happy enough face--and seeing as how her roommate is more concerned with gushing over her boyfriend and what a nice guy he is (and, Emi notes sourly, how good he is in bed) their visits are so superficial as to seem completely boring. At least up until her roommate shows up with a new friend in tow.
“I promised her I’d let her borrow this top of mine,” her roommate says, digging through her closet and failing entirely to notice that Emi is staring at her friend with an expression of complete astonishment. “There’s a group of us headed to this karaoke bar, they’ve got a great rate…”
Emi continues to stare at her roommate’s friend, who has by this point is staring back with equal surprise that begins to change to amusement the longer Emi’s roommate natters on. She’s taller than Emi remembers, and some of her softness has vanished, along with most of her hair which has also changed color (now a deep electric blue), but the eyes are the same, as is the unmistakable grin that appears, followed shortly by the laugh, which is basically impossible to forget.
“...Misha?” Emi’s not sure why she suddenly feels so awkward, lounging around in gym shorts and a t-shirt that is veering dangerously close to rag territory. To have someone who knew her when she was far more outgoing and popular than she is now suddenly show up uninvited in her room is an awful lot to take. “What are you doing here?”
A gale of laughter erupts as Emi’s roommate raises an eyebrow. “Borrowing a top so I can go sing karaoke! Assuming Mai can find it, of course.”
“Wait a second, do you two...know each other?” Mai seems, if possible, more surprised than Emi.
“We went to school together! Although I didn’t know we’d wound up at the same university…”
“I thought Emi went to a specific school for…” Mai pauses and looks nervously at her roommate as a million different possibilities, each of them ending in a deeply offended roommate, flash through her head.
“The disabled, right. But Misha was there as an interpreter for the deaf.” Emi steps in to save Mai, who has always been very sensitive to Emi’s feelings re: her legs and the proper terminology--something she’s always been secretly grateful for.
“That’s right!~” The lilt in Misha’s voice hasn’t changed either, apparently. “We weren’t in the same class, but we ran into each other a few times here and there.~” If possible, Misha’s grin grows a bit wider and for a moment Emi thinks she’s about to elaborate on just what ‘ran into each other’ means, but instead she claps her hands together excitedly. “I never imagined I’d see a familiar face here!”
Emi finds herself enveloped in an enthusiastic (and sudden) hug and feels suddenly like a weight has lifted off her shoulders, ever so slightly. She feels a smile creep across her face and returns the hug. “I guess we’ll have to do some catching up soon, huh?”
Mai may be slightly out of touch when it comes to the overall demeanor of her occasional roommate, but she’s sensitive enough to notice that Emi has brightened up significantly. Feeling slightly concerned that she’d somehow failed to notice her roommate’s dour mood until now, and because they are friends, after all, she resolves that Emi will be coming out with her tonight. “Come with us, Emi! We’ve got plenty of time for you to get ready to go.”
This kindness of the gesture is not lost on Emi, who mentally resolves to be more engaged with her roommate (when she shows up, anyway). The sudden brightening of her own mood by the sudden appearance of Misha helps bring back some of the younger, up-for-anything Emi. “Sounds great! Are you sure you’ve got time? I need to shower and find something to wear…”
“It’s no trouble, honest!”
There is some more back-and-forthing--Emi expresses her gratitude, Mai insists it’s no trouble, and Misha enthusiastically declares she will help Emi find something to wear. A surprisingly short amount of time later and Emi’s in a pair of jeans and a top Misha insists looks cute on her they’ve found the rest of Mai’s friends, and Emi feels an unfamiliar lurch of panic as she is introduced to each person in turn that seems to underline just how long it’s been since she last bothered to be sociable. Fortunately, she is not too young to drink, and the drinks are not too expensive, so soon enough she feels less anxiety. In spite of her more relaxed state, however, Emi can’t help but gravitate naturally toward Misha--she knows her in a way that she doesn’t know anyone else, and Misha’s own natural boisterousness is oddly comforting in its familiarity. Not that the two spent much time together at Yamaku, but they share a common experience and that is far more to go on than the total strangers Mai is introducing Emi to.
Meanwhile, Misha is equally surprised to have so suddenly stumbled upon an old acquaintance from a part of her life she tries not to think too hard about these days. The end of her high school career was somewhat less enjoyable than she’d hoped it would be, and rash actions in those final days had more or less demanded she make a clean break once graduation was over. She’s been making her own way for the last two years, undergoing the sort of rapid emotional development that occasionally happens to people once free of the hefty emotional baggage high school grants.
There’s a moment’s surprise when she finds out Emi’s only just started her college career--”That makes me your superior, you know!”--and does her best to conceal her shock at how different Emi seems from the girl she once knew. This girl is far less outgoing than Misha remembers, and seems unsure of herself in a way Emi never was at Yamaku. Misha doesn’t consider herself to be a busybody, of course, but old habits die hard. She makes the decision to keep an eye on Emi and firmly tells herself this is about being friends and not anything else--because Misha knows too well what happens if she lets herself believe there could be more. Heartbreak, man, and plenty of it. She’s come a long way in the last two years, and it’s best she doesn’t slip into old, self-destructive habits.
As the alcohol continues to flow, Emi feels herself teetering on the edge of having one of those drunken emotional moments that her mother used to warn her about and, somewhat reluctantly(?) decides that it is time for her to beat a hasty retreat; made easier by the fact that the group has apparently partied until, if not the break of dawn, at least close enough to it that the karaoke bar’s shutting down. She says her goodbyes and is just about to walk off when she feels a hand on her shoulder.
“Hey, you can’t go yet! I still need your phone number!” Misha’s pretty drunk herself at this point, but she spent years learning the sort of self control nuns normally practice, so the request manages to sound friendly rather than seductive. “We have a lot to catch up on!~”
Emi rattles off the necessary digits, relieved that one of them remembered--she’s drunk enough to admit to herself that she’s been craving human contact, and if it’s someone she was friendly with before, well, that’s so much the better. Another part of her (no guesses for which one) also points out that this is someone she was once more than friendly with, and it’s been a long, long time since she was more than friendly with anyone. A hug from Misha and even one from Mai follows, who, as it turns out, holds her liquor better than either Emi or Misha and maybe saw something between these two, hmm, very interesting.
The next morning involves a killer headache and an abject failure to get out and run, which Emi reckons is not a terrible price to pay for having actually gotten some much-needed socializing done. She is surprised by both how much better she feels and how badly she wants to see Misha again, because it had been so easy to fall out of touch with everyone she knew in high school. Nobody ever got properly close to her, attempts of ex-boyfriends all failed in the sort of spectacular and dramatic way that high school romances tend to fail.
Now of course here she is, trying not to seem too eager to see Misha again because she can’t remember the last time she felt as good as she’d felt last night. So instead of calling or texting, Emi goes for her usual run (which is hellish, but by the end she feels almost human again) and sits down to actually focus on some coursework for what is probably the first time in a solid month. Maybe she glances at the phone a few times and wills it to ring, but who can blame her? It’s not every day she meets someone who wants to hang out, much less actually seems excited to see her again.
It’s a great feeling, as a result, when her phone buzzes just as Emi’s finishing up an assignment and it turns out to be a text from Misha, asking what she’s up to.
“Just finishing up some homework.” Emi types back, adding after a moment’s thought, “I felt like hell this morning.”
“lol, me too! spent the day in bed.”
“Not a bad idea. I went running and it was pretty awful.”
“ur not human!” Misha responds, followed by “you wanna grab something to eat? havent eaten all day.”
Emi texts back that yes, that sounds good, and the two agree to meet in the campus cafeteria, because neither of them are exactly swimming in money and they both have meal cards. Emi bounds out of her room after throwing on some nicer-looking clothes than what were essentially her pyjamas and has to control the urge to jog to the cafeteria so she’ll get there faster. It’s been a long time, she realizes, since she did anything more than grab some food and bring it back to her room to eat alone. Shaking her head, Emi wonders just how the fuck she allowed herself to become so isolated--but that’s the way these things tend to go, of course. One day she’s outgoing and popular, the next day a million little things have gone wrong and she’s unable to deal with the shift, or maybe it’s just that a lifetime of keeping people at arm’s length has finally bitten her in the ass like she always knew it would.
Emi’s always known to some extent she wasn’t really the outgoing type--not the sort that actually makes fast friendships that can withstand any significant complications (like having a crush on your friend/roommate and not knowing how to act on it, or having the boy you’re interested in decide that running isn’t for him, a voice in her head mocks). She knows precisely why, of course--maybe Emi wasn’t the most self-aware kid in high school but she figured that little mystery out before she graduated--but it’s been another two years and to her surprise she’s almost gotten used to not having him around. Maybe it’s time to actually make some real friends before she ends up alone forever; certainly the appearance of Misha must be some kind of sign, right? Emi’s not what you’d consider a ‘spiritual person,’ but it sure does feel like some external force is sending her a message about something.
This train of thought is derailed by the sight of Misha slumped down at one of the cafeteria tables, staring at the surface of the table as if it might provide some kind of answer to life’s questions and looking for all the world like she’s just gotten out of bed. Her hair is stuck up, and while Emi might have been together enough to decide to throw on actual clothes, Misha is wearing a several-sizes-too-large shirt and a pair of sweatpants. Stifling a laugh, Emi slides into the seat across from her and waves a hand in front of her new friend’s bleary eyes.
“Rough night?”
Misha’s eyes focus on this new arrival and her brain begins the task of remembering how to speak. Her throat is slightly raw from a morning spent praying for death in front of the toilet, so her voice comes out as more of a gurgle than anything else. Emi fails to stifle further laughter and spends a few moments cackling, the bitch, while Misha claps her hands over her ears and prays for death--either her own or Emi’s, she can’t decide which.
“Please, not so loud! Some of us aren’t so fortunate when it comes to shaking off a night out, you know?” This time Misha’s voice comes out as a plaintive whine, which doesn’t do much to stop Emi’s laughter.
Eventually Emi gets ahold of herself and calms down. “Sorry, Misha, I couldn’t help it. You look so miserable!”
“That’s because I am miserable! I don’t drink that often, you know?” The reason for Misha’s usual sobriety is, of course, one of necessity--experience has taught her the consequences of acting impulsively, after all, and self-control aside alcohol is a risk she’s not always willing to take. “I’m not used to the morning after.”
“I’m surprised,” Emi says, almost immediately regretting it, “I always saw you as the life of the party. Certainly you and Hakamichi were always out on the town when you weren’t in the office…”
A pained expression flashes across Misha’s face that she covers with a giggle. “We didn’t go out that often--certainly not to go drinking. It would’ve been completely against the rules, silly!~” Misha takes the opportunity to fire back with a question of her own. “I always had you pegged as far more likely to be a secret party animal.”
Emi mentally files away the fact that Hakamichi is probably a topic best left unexplored for now and replies with a giggle of her own. “Well, I didn’t say I wasn’t. Though I had to keep in shape for track, of course, so I don’t know about animal.” Almost without meaning to, she finds herself adding with a hint of bitterness, “Not much of a concern these days.”
Unlike Emi, Misha makes a note of the tone and decides that further inquiry is necessary, rather than to be avoided. “You aren’t running track anymore? Why not?”
“There’s no team for people like me here, for starters. If I want to keep competing, it has to be done on my own, which costs money for things like entry fees--which I can’t really afford. Plus…” To her surprise, Emi finds herself responding more honestly than she usually would. Maybe it’s that she’s tired, maybe it’s that she just wants someone to talk to about it, and maybe--maybe it’s because it’s been long enough that it doesn’t feel as painful anymore. “I think I really only pursued track as aggressively as I did ‘cause of my dad.”
Misha stays quiet, and Emi continues, the words spilling out almost uncontrollably now. “He was like my running coach growing up, and after the wreck it felt like a way to remember him, you know? Only now I don’t know if I need or even really want to keep running competitively anymore.” Emi stops talking suddenly, stunned by what she’s just vocalized.
Misha, for her part, has the good sense to realize that her friend has inadvertently stumbled into some kind of personal revelation here, and (as she’s done so many times before) reaches out and places a comforting hand on Emi’s shoulder. “Hey, sorry. Forget I asked, okay?”
Surprisingly, however, Emi starts to laugh, quietly at first and then exploding into loud gales of laughter that draw some strange looks from the others in the cafeteria. Misha tries and fails to shoot an expression that conveys “sorry, I don’t actually know who this person is but maybe they’ll stop laughing soon” to the rest of the room. Fortunately Emi seems to come to the end of her fit and looks at Misha with eyes shining. “Sorry I just…” she chuckles again, shaking her head in disbelief, “I just wasn’t expecting to say any of that out loud today.” Another pause. “Or ever, really.”
Misha has her own experience with life-changing revelations--really just the one big one around the same time as puberty hit--but she doesn’t remember laughter being her response. More like feelings of guilt and shame (and a healthy helping of paranoia) which, even now, still manage to make an appearance every now and again. Unsure of how to proceed from here, Misha reverts to humor. “I guess you should drink more often, huh?” She follows this up with a laugh of her own which is cut short by how much worse her headache gets when her laughter starts reverberating around the inside of her skull.
The joke doesn’t quite land, but Misha’s suffering carries its own comedy, so Emi winds up chuckling a little. “Maybe so.” Misha continues to clutch at her head and whimper slightly, and Emi takes pity on her new(?) friend. “Hey, come on. Let’s get some food into you.”
A plate of the finest cuisine a college can offer later and Misha appears to be on the mend--the giant bottle of water she’s clinging to like it’s the most important thing in the world helps matters too, obviously--while Emi’s still riding the high of her earlier realization. “So I’ve gotta ask,” she says, gesturing to Misha’s hair, “why’d you change your hair? I thought pink was always your color.”
Misha shrugs and, not wanting to risk bringing the mood down again, gives a vague answer. “After we graduated I felt like I needed a change, you know? I was going away to college and I figured that was as good of a reason as any!”
Emi’s willing to accept this as a response, if only because she’s got some vague memories of some fairly vicious talk that floated around in the last few months at Yamaku re: Misha and her state of affairs, in particular the ones involving the class president. “I like it!” she says (meaning the hair), “Blue suits you - and I’m sure short hair’s easier to maintain as well, right?”
Misha laughs again--quieter this time--at Emi’s comment and nods her head vigorously. “It’s true! Doing my hair used to take forever, you know? Now I can sleep in a little longer!” She gestures at Emi’s hair now, feeling compelled to return the compliment. “I notice your hair’s different now too! No more twintails, huh?”
Emi brushes her hair back, a little self-consciously. “Yeah, I had to keep my hair tied back when I worked at Aura Mart, and I wound up getting used to it.”
“You worked at Aura Mart? When?”
“Last year.” Emi laughs at Misha’s shocked response. “I’d already missed the deadline for college applications for the year, so my mom said I had to get a job in the meantime. You know, save up money, that sort of thing.”
“So you’re secretly wealthy, huh?”
Another laugh. “Hardly! The pay was bad, and the customers were bad, and yeah, there were some okay people there…” Emi trails off for a moment, remembering a few occasions she and one of her more attractive co-workers had done some good old fashioned teenage shenanigans in the walk-in freezer (what was that guy’s name, anyway? He’d tasted like cigarettes and had a tongue piercing (which she now suspects could have been a real bonus if they’d taken things further, i.e. done anything outside of work) that had clacked against her teeth annoyingly which was part of why she’d decided to break it off with him) before continuing, “If nothing else, it convinced me to go to college so I could get a better job!”
This gets a laugh out of Misha. “I’m lucky,” she says, “My parents were so happy I got into the program here they offered to pay all my expenses!” It’s a point of pride to Misha that her parents are so invested in her education, even if her mother’s reasoning runs along the lines of “college is the best place to find a future husband.”
“Sounds lovely. I guess I know who to go to when I need money then, huh?”
“I have reasonable interest rates” Misha says, adopting a gangster-ish sort of voice as Emi comes close to snorting her drink through her nose, “and of course, if you can’t pay I’m sure we could come to...some kind of arrangement~*”
The look Emi gives Misha hangs in the air as both women find their minds drifting into scenarios erotic, from which they quickly backtrack before it becomes obvious to the other. “I want you to know,” Emi says, leaning forward and trailing off, waiting until Misha shows signs of alarm to continue “that I won’t kill anyone for you.”
Just like that, the tension breaks and the two laugh. Misha stands and stretches, feeling considerably better now that she’s got some food and water into her system. “Well,” she says brightly, “now that I don’t want to die, I think I’m going to go lay in bed and watch television.”
“The best cure after a long night out.” Emi nods.
“You wanna join me? Unless you’ve got other things to do, Miss ‘I went for a run and did homework.’” As soon as she makes the offer, Misha regrets it--they’ve barely hung out at all, and she doesn’t want to make things awkward (and nothing says awkward like lounging on her bed watching bad television). For whatever reason Misha’s already feeling like Emi’s become a close friend and this, this could fuck it all up.
It’s a relief, then, that Emi gives an apologetic shake of the head. “Sorry, but I’ve got class first thing in the morning tomorrow and there’s still a ton of work I’ve been putting off.” And, because part of her really would like to lounge in Misha’s room watching television, she adds, “Another time, okay?”
This statement earns a smile from Misha as a feeling of relief washes over her. “Definitely! I’ll talk to you later!” She’s turning to leave when Emi, acting impulsively for the first time in a long time, gives her a hug and a murmured “good to see you again” before stepping back and heading out the cafeteria, leaving a momentarily stunned Misha in her wake.
Neither one has a particularly easy time sleeping that night--Emi’s got a chance to actually think about what she said about running competitively and frets about what the hell she’s meant to do with her life now that she has somewhat tacitly acknowledged she no longer wants to be a professional runner--not in the super-aggressive, Olympics-bound dream she’d always claimed to have, anyway--so a full-on late night existential crisis seems appropriate. Let’s not even get into the nascent feelings bubbling around the blue-haired (her favorite color! At least the universe has a sense of humor) girl who appeared out of nowhere and has, in a single day, almost single-handedly pulled Emi out of her funk. Misha is kept awake replaying the hug over and over, not worrying about it, not exactly, but wondering if perhaps, maybe, things could move in that direction, and is that something she can trust herself not to screw up, and it’s sure been a very long time since Misha considered that kind of relationship with anyone, hasn’t it?
In a week the two discover that while they aren’t in the same classes, they do seem to have schedules which are similar enough to one another--namely, now that they know what each other looks like they recognize one another in the cafeteria and end up eating together on a regular basis. Emi meets Misha’s friends: Moira, a Scottish (Emi’s surprised to meet another person with Scottish blood, having regarded Lily as something of a unicorn in terms of rarity) import with green hair and a tattoo of some Gaelic phrase on her arm who’s studying political science even though it only seems to make her angry (and an accent that makes her all but incomprehensible when she really gets going); Ryougi, a biology major who keeps her dark hair short and immediately bonds with Emi over a shared love of baggier clothing (although Emi’s reasons all have to do with keeping her prostheses from drawing attention, whereas Ryougi’s all have to do with a boyish aesthetic that Emi finds deeply compelling for reasons she damn well knows but doesn’t always acknowledge); and Haruko, a philosophy major with long red hair who spends most of the lunch hour napping and is, Emi finds out later, the one who knows where the best parties are. Next to them all, Emi is even more surprised than she was before that Misha seems to make so much time to see her, because all Misha’s friends seem far more interesting than Emi considers herself to be.
“How did you all wind up meeting?” Emi asks Misha at one point.
“Oh, we all met at this club meeting back in my first year.” Misha replies. “I was thinking about joining the radio station.”
“I never knew you were interested in radio,” Emi replies, more than a little intrigued.
“She really wasn’t,” Ryougi interjects with a smirk, “but I think she thought Moira was cute.”
“Yes,” Moira says, shooting a significant look at Ryougi, complete with a suggestive waggle of the eyebrows, “I seem to have that effect on some women, don’t I?”
Misha rolls her eyes and shakes her head at the display, shooting a look at Emi that seems to say “I’m sorry, these people are ridiculous.” Emi laughs, while another part of her brain quietly points out there seems to be a level of comfort with sexuality that she’s wholly unfamiliar with here, and she almost immediately feels more comfortable.
“Anyway as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted,” Misha says, shooting another glare at Ryougi, “I wound up not being that interested in the actual...radio part? But these poor women seemed so alone without me, so I stayed friends with them.”
“Also,” Haruko suddenly waking up and interjecting here, “she knew that we were the cool kids.”
Emi nods seriously. “I can tell.”
Just like that, Emi’s suddenly got not just the one friend, but a whole group of friends. Friends who contact her one weekend and invite her to a show that turns out to be heavy on the guitars and crowd-surfing, and Moira manages to stage dive not once but TWICE. Emi isn’t much for dancing (her legs aren’t built for that sort of thing) and is initially a little shy about it, but then Misha’s there bouncing along to the beat and so is she, unable to really understand what the singer’s saying but swept up with an energetic feeling she’s more used to getting from her runs than anything else. It’s not until the show’s over that she realizes just how sore her legs are from everything, but she’s too full of energy and feeling far too good to really care.
The group stumbles out into the night, laughing and sweating from the heat of the club interior, and Emi sees Ryougi take Moira’s hand and lead her away from the crowd. Haruko watches the two go and shouts some obscene advice to Ryougi, who laughs while Moira extends her middle finger and responds with some invective in English that nobody understands, although a series of follow-up gestures make it pretty clear. The two disappear into the night, leaving Haruko, Emi, and Misha on their own.
“Well, I don’t know about you two,” Haruko opines, “but I’m too wired to go home. Think I’ll find a bar nearby and have a few drinks--you two in?”
Which is how Emi finds herself at a table, swapping stories about Yamaku with Haruko who seems to find particular enjoyment in stories involving the paranoid kid with glasses. In return, Emi learns the following information about Haruko:
She’s lived in the city all her life
Her parents divorced, but inexplicably remain on friendly terms (and, she confides after several drinks with an exaggerated shudder, are probably still fucking occasionally)
She’s been bouncing around this particular music scene since high school
She used to skateboard a lot in high school, but barely does anymore (though she does have a skateboard in her room)
She has a weakness for men in punk rock bands
Emi discovers the last point when the band they’d been to see coincidentally shows up in the bar, having packed their gear and consumed all available alcohol at the venue. Haruko boldly strides up to the guitarist and strikes up a conversation, and after a few hours of drinks leaves with him--much to Misha’s amusement.
That leaves Emi and Misha, sitting in a...well, not a tree, but Emi’s had enough to drink that the idea of K-I-S-S-I-N-G no longer carries the sort of weight it would normally carry (which has never been terribly much to begin with for Emi, though the gender of Misha in question and what the response in a public setting would be does not fail to enter her mind), so she musters up a casual enough tone to say “You know, I think now would be a pretty good time to get out of here, grab some more drinks, and watch a movie or something.”
Misha, also feeling fairly relaxed and just about as pleased to be around Emi as she thinks is safe to allow herself to feel at the moment, falls right into Emi’s not-so-carefully placed trap and enthusiastically agrees. A general scraping of chairs and paying of tabs later and the two are strolling (or stumbling, depending on who you ask) their way back to Misha’s room where, as it turns out, there are already some cans of beer in the mini-fridge. The reaction to this discovery is greeted with the sort of praise unique to the slightly drunk, and Emi plops herself unceremoniously down on Misha’s futon with a can of beer and less-than-pure intentions. Misha continues to exhibit an almost superhuman ability to not notice Emi’s obvious intent, years of telling herself “don’t get your hopes up you have friends and those are enough, don’t fuck up another friendship what in the world do you think they invented vibrators for, it was so you don’t fuck up another friendship that is why” having done their job almost a little too well. Her uncertainty is buried deep under a running commentary on the events happening on the screen.
It comes as a legitimate surprise to Misha, then, when in the middle of her making some comment about the actress in the film they’re watching and what she, Misha, thinks of her abilities to act (they are nonexistent), Emi (who has found Misha’s running commentary to be funny and endearing and attractive somehow) gives her a piercing look (causing Misha to trail off and cock her head to the side inquisitively), grabs her shirt, and pulls Misha into contact with her--specifically, with her face--even more specifically, with her lips. Misha has a brief moment of confusion, followed by a moment of fear--a sort of “what the fuck is going on here” train of thought culminating in, aided by the alcohol swimming through her veins, the decision to enthusiastically respond to the kiss and Emi’s rather demanding attempts to embrace and otherwise unleash a solid month’s worth of pent up feelings which the two of them both realize have been boiling under the surface of their recent interactions.
Of course, the two are both pretty drunk, and so when Emi decides to escalate things by pushing Misha down on the bed she forgets which way the bed is actually facing and succeeds only in causing Misha to lose her balance on the bed’s edge and fall right the fuck off, which brings things to a halt--not for reasons of injury, but for reasons of Misha laughing uncontrollably while Emi tries to apologize. The laughter eventually dies down and Misha, staring up from the ground at her compatriot, attempts to make some kind of comment as to what’s just happened (the kissing thing, not the falling-off-the-bed thing).
Unfortunately, all she manages is a weak, “What brought that on?”
The question gives Emi pause, briefly, before the old Emi--the one who’s confident and the fastest thing on no legs and maybe even a little cocky, responds with a smirk and “Was that not clear? Should I…” and here Emi’s expression becomes downright seductive, or at least seductive for someone who is slightly drunk and looking down at the person they accidentally pushed on the floor, “repeat myself?”
Somehow, the line is delivered with enough confidence that Misha’s response is not to laugh, but to pull herself off the floor and push Emi down on the bed--in the proper direction so as to not fall out of bed, no less--looming over her in a way that leaves various bits of Emi downright elated. “That won’t be necessary,” Misha purrs (discovering a register of voice that she did not realize she possessed), and this time it’s her who initiates contact.
The bed is, unfortunately, not exactly made for two, and there are, of course, some fumblings seeing as it has been, as Misha gasps at one point, “a long time,” but there’s very little enthusiasm like drunken, horny enthusiasm, so the two do eventually get things off the ground, so to speak, and the do not actually fall asleep until the film has ended and the DVD menu music has looped a sufficient amount of times that Emi throws her leg at the television to turn it off. Misha snores slightly, but Emi finds it soothing somehow and drops off to sleep herself without thinking too hard about what they’d been doing.
Sunlight finds the two spooning under tangled sheets, which, Emi considers as she groggily surveys her situation--namely, the feeling of Misha pressed against her back and the arm looped (a little protectively) around her waist--is a far cry from the situation she’d expected herself to be in at this point. It also occurs to Emi that this is the first time in a very long time that she’d fallen asleep in a bed with another person--vigorous nighttime activities or not, Emi’s always had a strict policy of retiring to her own room afterwards, barring one exception, but had felt so content the previous evening that the thought never entered her mind--not even once.
Misha, for her part, had always figured she would say something romantic if this situation ever happened to her, but instead she wakes up feeling like she is about to vomit, and shortly after extricating herself from the sheets, runs to the bathroom to do so.
I mentioned this elsewhere already, but yesterday I reached out to a buddy of mine who also happens to be a Professional Editor person and asked if they could either 1. quote me on the cost of editing Vanquisher 2099 or 2. point me in the direction of someone who could quote me on the etc. etc.
I did that because as I sat down to look over the whole thing myself, I realized there was no way I was in any position to make the cuts and changes with clear eyes, because I’ve been immersed in it for a year and a half and that tends to skew one’s sense of perspective. Connections which are obvious to me might turn out to be completely incomprehensible, so I needed another set of eyes on it - and I needed those eyes to be Professional and Paid because I am not about to ask a friend to take a look at this 63k word thing just because we’re friends. This not only ensures I’ll get an honest opinion, but it also ensures that it will actually get done, which is why money is useful (plus people should get paid for doing their dang jobs, even if they are friends - something that has become a policy of mine over the last couple of years).
Plus, paying actual money to get this edited makes it Serious, aka it means I will actually put the damn thing out as a book that people can buy if they want to. That’ll involve finding an artist to design a cover as well, which will also cost money but hey fuck it in for a penny, in for a pound As They Say. I don’t know when the thing will become available for sale, but in 2016 I decided to write a book by the end of 2017, so it makes sense to make the decision now to have the damn thing Out by the end of 2018, assuming we’re not all dead.
I also started writing the next arc, which is shockingly earlier than I thought I would - I sort of intended to spend more time planning - but I had the first couple chapters pop into my head (I do not find it a coincidence that this coincided with my having remembered that Sleater-Kinney is a great band and spending the last couple of days listening to them after work) and now I’m bound and determined to get those down and then figure out how I want to tackle the rest (much like the first arc, the plan is to have the broad beats of the story hammered out before I start really diving into it, and then flesh things out as I go). I’m a sucker for establishing shots though, and these first chapters are basically a way for me to reintroduce myself to the world and characters while I figure out what exactly will plague our heroine this time around. Because I like setting deadlines and then missing them immediately, I’ve set a goal of being ready to launch the next arc on my birthday, because that’s when I launched the last one and that turned out okay so might as well double down.
I’m hoping to tell a different story this time around - we started with giant conspiracies, which was cool, but this next arc is meant to, potentially, be a little smaller in scope. Plus there’s Jill still running around and who knows how d3m3t3r’s evolved in the meantime. At any rate, it’s a safe bet that people of a certain sort know who the Vanquisher is, and they might be interested in her for different reasons. Maybe they want to help. Maybe they want revenge. We will doubtless find out together. Well, not totally together - I’ll hopefully have a bunch of stuff written by the time my birthday rolls around, so I’ll know what happens way before you do. But, you know, it’ll probably be a surprise to me too once I come up with it.
In the meantime, I’ll gladly continue to post rambling bullshit here, and put up that KS epilogue for Emi I mentioned as well, because I might as well put that up somewhere in a complete form instead of having it buried on the forums. Apparently that is a two year old bit of writing now, which is mind-blowing to me because it feels like I just did it like, last year. Time’s gotten pretty goddamned shifty out here. We’ll figure it out one way or the other though, eh?
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